


Message

by halotolerant



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Declarations Of Love, Fluff, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 14:29:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6569908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halotolerant/pseuds/halotolerant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Right, um, so, this thing is on, I guess?”</p><p>On Hannibal’s laptop screen, the video running on the player shows Will frowning at the device he’s got recording himself, continuing to mutter as he double checks. He keeps licking his lips, his throat moving; he’s nervous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Message

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: _This anon is badly in need of sap/fluff and would like to prompt Hannigram first-time exchanging I-love-yous._ *g*

“Right, um, so, this thing is on, I guess?”

On Hannibal’s laptop screen, the video running on the player shows Will frowning at the device he’s got recording himself, continuing to mutter as he double checks. He keeps licking his lips, his throat moving; he’s nervous.

Hannibal sits back in his desk chair, falling hard and fast somewhere between thrilled and terrified.

If this isn’t real, if Will can’t convince him, he’ll know, and everything will shatter along the same fault-lines as his heart.

If Will isn’t sincere - if that sweet, anxious solicitousness onscreen can only blossom into something attempted and aped - then the whole universe will fall away into darkness.

Hannibal can smile at the ridiculousness of that, of himself, but only sadly, only as one who knows, after years, after time and more to learn they can think no other way, that they have become dependant on another person.

How his self of six years ago would mock him now, how much despair and disgust he’d fling.

But six years ago he did not have Will Graham, and was infinitely lesser. 

Although… does he have Will now? 

That, above all, is the question. 

On the screen, in the recording, Will has settled to sit on the end of a neatly made bed, no doubt the one in the hotel room where he’s currently staying. A month apart, Hannibal had said, and in separate countries, Will far away and with his own credit cards and plenty of things to do - Hannibal deliberately doesn’t know where Will picked, but fishing equipment went with him - and with instructions, orders, to talk to other people, even to touch them if he felt so moved.

There are no signs, in the hotel room, of any other inhabitant or past visitor. Not that that is conclusive in the slightest.

“So,” Will is saying, and he brings his hands together, wringing, and then very consciously separates them, places his palms on the bed to either side of him and looks up.

Clear-eyed, that gaze. No Dutch courage. Will is staring into the unblinking lens of the recording device - his phone, probably - without hesitation.

With even something like… hunger? Wistfulness?

Hannibal realises his own pose mirrors Will’s, and sits back, forcibly crossing his legs, even though this isn’t live, isn’t videochat, and whatever Will has said has been said hours ago, and cannot change now.

“You wanted me to say this away from you, away from influence,” Will states, and there’s a touch of impatient irritation in the words.

They had argued about it. Will had said he knew his own mind, always had, except for that one time when Hannibal…

And Hannibal had said: Exactly.

Will had asked what sense it made to send him away - to separate them, he’d said, all that dark lust in his eyes like cocoa powder on soft-rolled chocolate fondant - just to prove that Hannibal wasn’t manipulating him. He’d said that he knew Hannibal could program people with effects lasting longer than a month, that this could all be a double bluff, that it would prove nothing to Will that he didn’t already know and so it only made sense if…

And Hannibal had nodded, and blushed, ashamed of his own need in a way he’s rarely felt.

“You were worried that I was mirroring your desire, your love for me, possibly even unconsciously,” says Will on the screen. He says the words without the steel or steadiness of perfect conviction - Hannibal’s feelings aren’t real, quite, to him, either.

On the bed, Will’s hands are twitching. The back of one has a band-aid across it, impossible to determine why, a strange place for an injury.

“Well, I’ve been here four weeks now,” Will says, and sighs. “Four long weeks and I’ve caught a lot of fish and I’ve talked to a lot of men about boats and their wives, their wives and boats.”

He leans forward, staring into the camera.

“And I’ve wanted you, Hannibal. I wanted you when I got here, because the bed is wide and new and doesn’t smell like you. I wanted you out on the sea with me, fishing, because I want to share that with you, and being alone doesn’t satisfy me any more - and more on that later by the way.” He smiles, that brilliant, easy, simple smile that has appeared more often since they crawled out of the Atlantic, like he’s found the punchline to existence that always eluded him.

Hannibal’s heart is going to break out of him and burst.

“I wanted you,” says Will, glorious Will with his throat pale and working, “when I was with those men with their boats. I wanted to sneer at them with you. I wanted to dispose of them with you. I wanted you because I want to share that with you, and because you know better than I do how to get blood out of plastic decking, and because your cooking is better than mine, for red meat anyway.”

Sitting forward again, Hannibal can’t help making a noise. There’s a sharp pain in the bridge of his nose; he’s about to weep, it seems, entirely ghastly.

So much surprises him, with Will, and he didn’t know he needed to hear this this much, didn’t know there was that much joy that could be found, and serotonin and oxytocin rushing through his brain like he’s drowning.

Will, grinning, chuckles to himself, and then, after a moment, licks his lips again, looks away and then back.

“I wanted you because I love you. I love you, Hannibal. I…” another small laugh, this one wondering, a little shy. “Perhaps you had a point about how caught up in each other we’ve been. About… Because I’ve come here and I’ve known I had all the options in the world, I could have…” he waves an arm in the air, “I dunno, called Molly and just…”

But he didn’t, and Hannibal doesn’t have to even let his heart skip a beat because Will didn’t do that, and Hannibal has him, Hannibal has… he can’t quite breathe.

“But all I want is you,” Will leans forward. “And this? Is stupid and I’m going to… This is going to your WeTransfer and then I am coming home, Hannibal Lecter, I am coming for you just as fast as I can and I’m going to take what you owe me.”

Will is hard in his pants. He makes sure to display this as he goes to switch the camera off.

Hannibal stands up, burning alive, immolated, tempered, transformed in joy. 

He has a welcome home to prepare.


End file.
